Page 84 of Shadows of the Soul

I swallowed and Hudson tensed. “I know.” Saying sorry wouldn’t take away his pain, and it was too little of a sentiment for his loss.

“Promise me we will kill the bastard and make it hurt.”

I moved toward Dave and wrapped my hands around his tight fists. “He will die screaming. I will make sure of it.”

He stared at my face and saw my resolve. He nodded and rose to his feet. The door burst open and Aunt Dayna came bounding through. “It’s back,” she declared.

“The demon?” Hudson asked as he jumped to his feet. Now everyone was ready for battle.

Aunt Dayna spun in a circle, her fluffy skirts floating around her, and giggled. “My house, silly man.”

The boys blinked. “The house that got sucked through a portal to Hell?” Dave checked.

She parked her hands on her hips. “What other house would I be referring to?”

Dave ran a hand through his hair. “I’m too old for this shit.”

“We need to reset the wards,” Dayna chatted on. “Should only take a day or two.”

“You’re leaving?” I checked.

She nodded. “Yes, and my sisters. Plus my mother,” she muttered with a dark look.

“Excuse me,” Dave snapped as he rushed out of the room. I didn’t envy my Aunt Liz. He looked like a man on a mission.

My heart sank, and I squeezed my hands into fists. Without my aunts and grandmother, I’d be vulnerable to the encroaching evil. But my family didn’t know the stakes. “We’ve banished the demon. You are about to bless the house—that should sort out the blood magic. Surely you can hold the fort for forty-eight hours? There’s a waiting list for our rooms, so you’ll be able to make some extra cash.”

I forced myself to smile. “Sure.”

Hudson was studying my face like it was a map to my inner thoughts. He was too perceptive and could see through to the bubbling anxiety sitting beneath my flesh.

Aunt Dayna headed up the stairs after Dave. I tilted my head toward the examination room and broke the awkward silence settling between my best friend and ex-boyfriend. Although we hardly got off the ground, so I guess he doesn’t warrant an ex status. “I need to gather a few items and prepare. I’ll meet you in the garden in half an hour.”

***

They’d left. Including Dave, which meant I’d had to rope Rebecca into the fray. We stood in a circle around the grave where Tom’s bones had been laid, the place where the roses had first grown. Each of us held a white pillar candle and as I began the blessing, they lit them one at a time on my signal. The elements answered my call, and power flooded the circle. It was a good thing my family had left. By all rights I should be tapped out of magic, with an exorcism and a retro read in twenty-four hours. The truth was, I got tired, but my well of power never ran dry, it rarely ran low. My family would expect me to pull on the magic of those in the circle to supplement my own and conduct a successful blessing. I didn’t need their power. The portal upstairs was a testament to that.

I finished the blessing with an extra burst of power that seeped into the ground and raced along the network of roses. My magic twisted with the blood spell and tugged. It latched onto the satanic priest’s signature and the boy’s genetic code and disentangled it from my own more primordial lineage. A rumble shook the earth, causing the four of us to look around. Was it natural or unnatural? Benevolent or malevolent? The vines snapped around us and out of the earth rose hundreds of bones. They shook themselves free of the dirt and continued rising to waist height. They covered my grounds in every direction. Some were those I’d laid to rest, many weren’t.

Hudson eyeballed the bones like they were branding irons. “Where the hell did they all come from?” He sniffed the air. “Some of these are fresh, Cora.”

A deep scowl settled on my face. “Our resident Satanic priest has been a busy man. No wonder the blood magic was so strong. He’s been feeding it daily.”

Rebecca swallowed. “Now what?”

I placed my candle on the floor. This was going to be horrible, but there was only one way to fix this. I reached out and grabbed the first bone. Instead of falling into a retro read, I slammed my walls down and forced my power through the connection. Stephen felt me, and I braced myself for the impact of his rebuttal. It never came. The bones shivered in the air as a burst of cleansing energy flowed from me. Flames ignited every single bone, creating an impromptu firework display. “What on earth?” I said.

The flames shot high, then the bones turned to ash and scattered over my grounds before sinking into the dirt. The bloodied roses shed their crimson, and the blooms turned obsidian.

“Oh shit,” I muttered, spinning in a circle. A whip of soul-sucking magic stole my breath, leaving me feeling both weaker and stronger. My fingers twitched as I attempted to call upon my element. The water in the Mississippi no longer listened. Stephen Proctor had stripped my elemental power and left me feeling bereft of my matriarchal lineage. This was Lucifer’s doing. Now I was my father’s daughter, and shit was about to go down.

“They’re not bleeding anymore, that’s a good thing, right?” Sebastian asked.

“Bleeding, they were still alive. Now they are death.”

“You mean dead.”

“No, I mean they aredeath.”

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